Cesarani is a member of the Home OfficeHolocaust Memorial Day Strategic Group and has been Director of the AHRC Parkes Centre, part of the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations. He is co-editor of the journal Patterns of Prejudice and the Parkes-Wiener Series of books on Jewish Studies (published by Vallentine-Mitchell).

Cesarani has campaigned against David Irving, the prominent Holocaust denier and controversial writer on Nazi Germany, alongside fellow academic Peter Longerich. At times, his campaigning has itself caused controversy, most notably the occasion he allegedly suggested that the Irving case revealed free speech was something that should be strictly controlled. Journalist David Guttenplan commented Cesarani's remarks were "more dangerous than anything David Irving has ever said or written."[1]

In February 2005, Cesarani was awarded an OBE for "services to Holocaust Education and advising the government with regard to the establishment of Holocaust Memorial Day".[2] Cesarani was strongly critical of Hannah Arendt in his Eichmann biography, but one reviewer argued that his "slur reveals a writer in control neither of his material nor of himself."[3]

Cesarani believes that Israel's right to exist is unquestionable, and that "[d]enying the right of Israel to exist begs some serious questions."[4]

He sees the controversy over the Israeli West Bank barrier as being unimportant, and that it is used as a photo opportunity for the world media. He says about the wall that "it's a concern if land is misappropriated from the Palestinians, or if Palestinian lives become intolerable, but its true significance is in the total disintegration of trust between Jews and Palestinians", though he also believes some reactions to the barrier have been under-reported, for example that "some Arab towns, especially in southern Galilee, have welcomed the wall as a means of preventing Palestinians entering Israeli towns and adding to the unemployment and instability."[4]

Of his experience while working in a kibbutz, he said: "We were always told that the pile of rubble at the top of the hill was a Crusader castle. It was only much later that I discovered it was an Arab village that had been ruined in the Six-Day war."[4]